blog




  • Essay / An Ecocritical Perspective on Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

    An Ecocritical Perspective on Flight Behavior by Barbara KingsolverA Clarion Call on Climate ChangeSummary: Ecocriticism is the study of literature and the environment of an interdisciplinary point of view, where literature scholars analyze texts that illustrate environmental concerns and examine the different ways in which literature treats the subject of nature. This allows human beings to better understand nature. Barbara Kingsolver is an American novelist, essayist and poet. She is a writer who has a gift for telling compelling stories and creating interesting, lively characters. Raised in rural Kentucky, many of her books revolve around themes of rural life, nature, social justice, and biodiversity. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original Flight Behavior essay, his esteemed novel is a clear example of his extreme concern for the natural world. In Flight Behavior, Kingsolver creates a fascinating comparison between the life trajectory of Dellarobia Turnbow, an unfortunate housewife on the verge of cheating, and the migration of the monarch butterfly, a hypnotic but life-altering effect of climate change. His ability to put the silent and breathtakingly beautiful butterflies at the center of this calamitous and noisy debate is exceptionally brilliant. In this story, the survival techniques of the monarch butterflies and those of the young woman Dellarobia are inextricably linked and analogous. The monarchs made a typical escape due to flooding and landslides that caused trees to fall all over their usual resting place in Mexico. Therefore, they migrated to Feather Town to winter. Keywords: Ecocriticism, climate change, migration, global warming, Cli-fi fiction. In the 21st century, climate change has become a dominant theme in literature and, consequently, in literary studies. Its popularity in fiction has given rise to the term Cli-fi, or climate change fiction, and speculation that it is a distinctive literary genre. Many thriving authors of literary fiction, such as Margaret Atwood, Ian Mc Ewan, Amitav Ghosh, Barbara Kingsolver, Lydia Millet, David Mitchell, Nathaniel Rich, Kim Stanley Robinson, Leslie Marmon Silko, Marcel Theroux…, have contributed to the efforts of this new gender. to imagine the causes, effects and sensations of global warming. In Flight Behavior, drawing on both his Appalachian roots and his background in biology, Kingsolver delivers a passionate novel about the effects of global warming. The novel is set on the Appalachian sheep farm of Tennessee, surrounded by conservative rural farmers. According to her, these are the people who are most affected by climate change and, strikingly, they are the least prepared to understand and believe in climate change and its causes. The major problem of the novel is the ignorance of climate change and the ecocritical vision. Blindness to environmental change, called “looking without seeing” (FB 52). Of course, it is very difficult to believe in things that you cannot see. We do not see the melting of sea ice, the depletion of the ozone layer, the increase in carbon in the atmosphere. So it's hard to believe that the world beneath our feet could ever be different than it has always been. Human animals have a fundamental trust in certain types of continuity. It is difficult to convince ourselves that climate change due to globalizationis an abstract future rather than a threat and a reality. Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver is a successful realistic example of Cli-fi directly confronting climate change. Kingsolver's extreme concern and appreciation for the natural world is quite evident in his novels. Flight Behavior visualizes one such spectacle upon the arrival of monarch butterflies in the Tennessee countryside as "an unearthly beauty... a vision of glory... a valley of lights... an ethereal wind, (FB 21). “She used the butterflies here not only for their symbolic beauty, but also to convey a strong message about climate change due to global warming. Flight Behavior explores ecological themes and highlights the possible effects of global warming on monarch butterflies. Butterflies are of course the central symbol of the novel. Monarch butterflies belong to the “Danaus family” (FB 165). Mr. Monarch is the only one smart enough to seek his fortune in a cold place, while all his relatives are tropical flies (FB 165). They are the only insects capable of flying great distances and even over oceans (FB 160). The average lifespan of a monarch butterfly is six weeks, but they pass their genes on to their descendants, who complete their journey north (FB 200). Flight Behavior celebrates the beauty of the monarch species and expresses admiration for the extraordinary complexity and sophistication of the instincts that allow it to migrate thousands of kilometers between Mexico and Canada each year. Their annual trip to Mexico appears to eliminate poisonous milkweed, their only larval food, in order to keep the population healthy (FB 481). Monarchs that usually fly to Mexico have come to spend the winter in Feather Town due to landslides and floods that have caused destruction of trees and homes and massive climate change. The arrival of monarch butterflies meant different things to different people depending on their own interests. For Dellarobia, it was a warning to turn away from one's sinful life and begin a new life, a symbol of resurrection. While for some, they are the object of annoyance. For Bear and Hester Turnbow, Dellarobia's in-laws, butterflies are a way to attract tourists and nature lovers through which they can raise money by putting an entrance fee at their door. farm to see the monarchs in order to repay their debts. For the villagers, it was a sign or rather a miracle from God. For media people like Tina Ultner, the butterflies represented a current and sensational discourse about the city with which they could promote their channel and surround their advertisements. Kingsolver points out the lack of seriousness in nature conservation in Mr. Bear Town. It targets and destroys trees uncontrollably. Because he considers the forest as “just trees” and not as a “treasure” to be preserved, so that it brings a good fall of rain for a better culture. Apart from this, he also planned to eliminate newly arrived visitors (monarchs) who are found between the logging plans using pesticides (DDT). The severity of climate change is terrible. Kingsolver presents its readers with a glimpse of the deadly disaster that climate change can bring to people by telling the story of Josefina's family. Josefina is the only child of her parents. It's the Mexicans. Her father was a tourist guide, says Josefina. “He takes people on horseback into the forest to see the monarchs…and my mother makes tamales for everyone” (FB 137). This is how his family earned their living,.).